I love the clichés of twee British TV murder mysteries – the village fete, the teacup switch, the gunshot in the dark room – but what I like best is the presence of lots of fantastic old ladies, a group which are underrepresented in nearly every other type of television genre.

In 1999, people over 60 made up 21 percent of the UK population, but just 7 percent of the television population (source) and in 2012 a BBC report (PDF) flagged the absence of older women on TV as a major problem.

I’ve said in another post that for the most part in popular culture, old women are given one of just two identities: dear old biddy or evil crone. In Twee British Murder there is a greater range of stereotypes to be found, although the biddy/crone dichotomy is still there. Through by no means a comprehensive list, I’ve identified five overlapping Twee British Murder character options for older women.

1) The Help

Rosalie Williams as Mrs Hudson. Image: Granada

An army of elderly female housekeepers, cooks, nurses, cleaners and secretaries form a vital part of the machinery of Twee British Murder.

Although they are rarely the killer, and tend to be only incidental victims (when they Know Too Much, for example) they have a vital dramatic function, especially as witnesses.

The cook remembers that someone different from usual offered to take the breakfast tray up to her mistress, the former nanny recalls a crucial detail from a suspect’s past…

It’s these long-suffering souls that make up the bulk of body-finders too, although they’re almost always questioned and dismissed with no further contribution except looking anxious.

But why are the servants and employees so swiftly ruled out? This 1928 article, 20 Rules for Writing Detective Fiction, states that:

A servant must not be chosen by the author as the culprit. This is begging a noble question. It is a too easy solution. The culprit must be a decidedly worth-while person — one that wouldn’t ordinarily come under suspicion.

Of course! Servants are a bunch of crims already: making one of them the murderer would be TOO OBVIOUS.

Moving on. An atypical member of this category is Sherlock Holmes’ tolerant landlady, Mrs Hudson. This is from The Adventure of the Dying Detective:

The landlady stood in the deepest awe of him and never dared to interfere with him, however outrageous his proceedings might seem. She was fond of him, too, for he had a remarkable gentleness and courtesy in his dealings with women.

I am a little obsessed with the 1980s Granada series starring Jeremy Brett as Holmes. In this series, Mrs Hudson (played by Rosalie Williams) is an important part of the small ‘family’ which surrounds the detective. Here’s one of my favourite Mrs Hudson moments, from The Cardboard Box, at 4:40mins in:

2) Frail Rich Lady

Often bedridden, with elaborate medical care requirements, and generally found in a spooky old house surrounded by squabbling, grasping relatives, these women are often trying to make a last minute change to their will when they meet their demise.

Frail Rich Ladies tend to be victims, but can occasionally turns out to be killers. Letitia Blacklock in A Murder is Announced, Laura Welman in Sad Cypress, and Amelia Barrowby in How Does Your Garden Grow? are classic examples from the Christie canon, as is Emily Arundell from Dumb Witness.

Bearing in mind the underlying biddy/crone stereotype binary, most of the above examples are on the biddy side of things. But there’s a fabulous Frail Rich Lady getting her crone on in one of Baroness Orczy’s Lady Molly stories, The Woman in the Big Hat (PDF). She’s 12mins in:

3) Eccentric Spinster

Eccentric Spinsters are also occasionally widows. The important thing is that they have been manless long enough for their eccentricity to flourish.

This is my very favourite old lady character type, and one that I aspire to. One of the best examples is the three sisters in Agatha Christie’s Nemesis. Here they are having tea with Miss Marple, at 7:09 mins in:

I love how there’s a bit of a maiden, mother and crone thing going on, with Clothilde, the more bookish, stereotypable-as-mannish, serious one (crone), Anthea the ‘girly’, immature one (maiden) and their more well-adjusted sister Lavinia, who tries to keep everything under control (mother). Lavinia’s the one who had been married, of course, so she’s coded as noticeably more ‘normal’ than the other two.

The Bradbury-Scott sisters above are at the biddy end of the spinster spectrum, but there’s a fantastic crone version called Honoria Lyddiard in the Midsomer Murders episode Written In Blood. She’s at 5:28 mins in:

Eccentric Spinsters can be victims, witnesses or killers, and can often be found providing another dramatic function: introducing a supernatural, prophetic red herring.

This provides a contrast with the detective’s rational method and cheap thrills for the viewer, as well as obfuscating the sequence of events for both. Prunella Scales turns in a scene-stealing performance as psychic Eleanor Bunsall in another Midsomer Murders episode, Beyond the Grave, and in Dumb Witness one of the two Miss Tripps receives a message for Poirot, at 15:13mins in:

4) Village Busybody

A provincial murder mystery staple. Like the servants and staff, this character provides vital information and misinformation, clues and red herrings for viewers. Without this character, there might be no mystery at all. She is a key witness, frequently a victim because she’s seen or heard something she shouldn’t have, but never the killer.

Although she’s only middle-aged in the TV adaption, Caroline Sheppard is worth a mention because of Agatha Christie’s comment in her autobiography that:

It is possible that Miss Marple arose from the pleasure I had taken in portraying Dr Sheppard’s sister in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. She had been my favourite character in the book – an acidulated spinster, full of curiosity, knowing everything, hearing everything: the complete detective service in the home.

My New Year’s resolution this year was to get the word ‘acidulated’ into every tenth conversation.

While Caroline Sheppard is relatively harmless, her crone counterpart uses her knowledge to manipulate others. Mrs Rainbird is an extremely camp example of this in the Midsomer Murders pilot The Killings at Badger’s Drift at 22mins:

5) Wise Woman

Joan Hickson as Miss Marple. Image: BBC

*Puts on What Would Miss Marple Do? t-shirt*

There’s not enough space here to do her justice, and I haven’t managed to find the perfect clip, but I wanted to share this: in her autobiography Agatha Christie likens Miss Marple to her grandmother in that “though a cheerful person, she always expected the worst of everyone and everything, and was, with almost frightening accuracy, usually proved right.”

That “frightening accuracy” is the hallmark of the Wise Woman, and Marple isn’t the only one in this role solving murders – I’d also put forward Gladys Mitchell’s creation Mrs Bradley.

The glamorous TV version of Mrs Bradley played by Diana Rigg departs pretty drastically from the description of her appearance in the books (she is emphatically witch-like: “She possessed nasty, dry, claw-like hands, and her arms, yellow and curiously repulsive, suggested the plucked wings of a fowl”). Nonetheless, she still provides a worthy crone counterpart to Miss Marple’s biddiness. In this clip, she’s driving away from her ex-husband’s funeral at 3:40mins:

Zoe Brennan, in her book The Older Woman in Recent Fiction, links both Miss Marple and Mrs Bradley (as well as other older women detectives such as Miss Silver and Miss Pym) with feminine archetypes, from fairytale witches to the Furies. This is a connection which Agatha Christie clearly had in mind when one character gives Marple the nickname ‘Nemesis’.

Postscript

For some more info about why this all matters, have a look at Understanding Age Stereotypes and Ageism (PDF). It’s also worth noting that while Twee British Murder is good on age diversity and features a lot of women characters, it fails dismally across other diversity strands.

However one common characteristic did emerge, although this may be more to do with Cornwall than with old age: eccentricity. Some of the most bizarre and wonderful people I have ever met have been women in their 70s. Cornwall is full of them. And I can tell you they make ‘quirky’ young women look like amateurs. I aspire to join their ranks. Don’t want to put too many teddy bears in your cat’s room in case he feels crowded? Written a play about an easter egg’s journey to self-understanding? Eat raw onions like apples? Genuinely believe you have a telepathic connection with that robin? JOIN US.

So imagine my delight on receiving a novel almost entirely populated by said ladies. You may already know about Surrealist painter Leonora Carrington (if not, here’s a quick primer on The F Word and some decent-sized images of her work) but you may not know that she was also a writer. One of her books is The Hearing Trumpet, which features 92-year-old Marian Leatherby as its polite, sensible and intrepid heroine.

Marian’s adventures begin when she is given a hearing trumpet as a gift. She overhears her son and daughter-in-law’s plans to install her in a medieval Spanish castle that has been converted into a home for old ladies. There a mystery begins, involving a decidedly witchy 18thC Abbess, the Holy Grail, and a plate of poisoned brownies. Trying to describe the plot doesn’t really do it justice, just go and read it. If you mixed a bit of Angela Carter, Spike Milligan, Agatha Christie and Roald Dahl together you might get something close. It’s enchanting and funny, and makes for a refreshing encounter with Surrealism sans machismo.

In a cast of old women there are no crones and just one biddy: kind, timid Maude. Although even she is not what she appears to be. Instead the reader is introduced to glamorous and cynical Georgina,  Veronica, who is blind, painting endless watercolours, dignified and enigmatic Christabel, religious visionary Natacha, graceful French Marquise Claude, frantic Anna, and Natacha’s devoted spiritual disciple Vera.

In her 2005 introduction to The Hearing Trumpet author Ali Smith wonders if the decision to write a story with such an elderly narrator and characters was “a reaction against Carrington’s Surrealist objectification as astonishingly gifted child-woman”. The idea of the femme-enfant was very important to the Surrealist movement, as her spontaneity and innocence (supposedly untainted by logic or rational thought) were felt to bring her closer to the unconscious. Though of course equating female creativity with youth left little room for the women associated with the movement to mature and develop as artists.

Exploration of the Sources of the Orinoco River, by Remedios Varo 1959

While the book is very definitely concerned with feminine experience, creativity and spirituality, there is no trace of an oppressive female essentialism. This is partly because old age has rendered most of the characters a little androgynous: Marian explains that she has “a short grey beard which conventional people would find repulsive. Personally I find it rather gallant.” But also because the book seems largely uninterested in restricting the feminine to the female.

As well as the ladies of Lightsome Hall there is Marian’s best friend Carmella, who writes letters to strangers, smokes cigars, brings port in a hot water bottle to evade confiscation, and devises audacious plans to spring Marian from the home. Their friendship is one of the loveliest aspects of the book, and was inspired by Leonora Carrington’s close friendship with fellow painter Remedios Varo.

Varo is less well known in the UK than Carrington, despite the success she found in her adopted home of Mexico – here are a few of her paintings. Their work shares some common themes and motifs, with both exploring mysticism and the significance of ritual, as well as drawing heavily on the natural world. In her biography of Varo, Unexpected Journeys, Janet Kaplan writes:

Traveling together into what the poet Adrienne Rich has called ‘the cratered night of female memory,’ they undertook a shared process of self-discovery, working together to probe the possibility of woman’s creative power. Through their exploration of hermetic and magical paths, they developed a common pictorial language, derived from the realms of domestic life, the fairy tale and the dream.

Their shared and similar experiences built a strong sense of mutual trust between them, not least the fact they had both recently been in detention – Carrington was incarcerated in a Spanish asylum following a mental breakdown, and Varo was interned in France for several months at the start of the Second World War. Carrington’s mistrust of institutions, family and doctors is very clear in The Hearing Trumpet, which ends with a joyful, absurd, anarchic revolution in society and in nature.

While they regularly spoofed their friendship in stories and letters to each other, its affectionate portrayal in The Hearing Trumpet is the best known, and particularly poignant now as Leonora Carrington is still alive and older than Marian Leatherby, but Remedios Varo died in 1963 in her early 50s.

It’s a strange and wonderful book, which I would heartily recommend to anyone with a taste for the peculiar and a playful sense of humour. Go on, it’ll brighten your January, trust me.